Information from IBIS World showed that from 2002 to 2012 the pilates and yoga industry grew on average 12.1% per year, and was very resistant to the recession by still experiencing growth in 2008 and 2009.

Those aged between 25 and 34 years old spend the most on activewear, including yoga clothing.

Lululemon, one of the biggest yoga clothing brands, grew in value 18% from 2017 to 2018 with revenue reaching $929 million.

Though the clothing brand continues to grow it is starting to lose market share to rivals such as Fabletics who took 38% of the market in 2016, giving it the largest market share followed by Athleta (35%) and then Lululemon (18%).

Benefits of Yoga

Yoga has shown to have a number of different health benefits for both your physical and mental wellbeing.

According to the 2016 Yoga in America study, improving flexibility was the most popular reason for starting yoga.

Stress relief, general fitness, improvement of overall health and physical fitness were also in the top five reasons for yoga participation.

The 2016 Yoga in America study revealed that there weren’t just benefits for their health too, yoga practitioners are more likely to live green, eat sustainably and volunteer their time to their local community.

The Child: Care, Health and Development journal ran a study with 249 children looking at how physical exercise impacted the symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), with yoga proving particularly successful in alleviating the symptoms.

A report by the US Department of Health and Human Services found that nearly 60% of practitioners felt that practicing yoga improved their sleep.

Research by the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center found that yoga can help you lose weight.

The study found that not only did respondents lose weight during the research but they reported a changed mindset, adopting a more mindful approach to eating that respondents felt would encourage them to keep the weight off.

Dangers of Yoga

Anyone who tells you that yoga “is just stretching” needs to look at the yoga injury statistics.

The Faculty of Health Science at Sydney University carried out a study in 2017 which followed 354 respondents with musculoskeletal pain with 21% of them saying yoga made their pain worse and more than 10% saying they felt yoga had caused the pain.

The ongoing monitoring by the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System, found that in 2001 there were 9.5 injuries per 100,000 participants with the number rising to 17 per 100,000, making it comparable to sports such as weight-training and golf.

The rise is believed to have come from unqualified teachers offering classes to eager beginners.

However compare the number of yoga injuries to another popular sport such as basketball and you’ll see that statistically yoga is much safer.

“Our current workout culture, including CrossFit, HIIT (high intensity interval training), and even yoga, can have negative consequences for the low back. In a way it’s ironic since we exercise to be strong and stay fit. However when done incorrectly these activities can cause low back pain and major tissue damage including fractures.”

Yoga Worldwide

An estimate suggests there are 300 million Yoga practitioners worldwide.

Though yoga originated in India, many countries across the world have now claimed it as their own.

While it can be difficult to monitor yoga popularity by country, Google Trend data shows which countries Google the term ‘yoga’ and associated terms the most, which gives a good indication of popularity.

At the time of writing, the top five countries googling about yoga were:

Canada

Singapore

Australia

United States

India

Supporting the Google Trend data is a study by The Frazer Institute, which found yoga was one of the top three most common complementary therapies used by the population of Canada over a lifetime:

Cerrillo-Urbina, A. J. et al. (2015) The effects of physical exercise in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized control trials. [Online] Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25988743 [Accessed 9 July 2018]. ↩

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2015) Wellness-related Use of Common Complementary Health Approaches Among Adults: United States, 2012. [Online] Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr085.pdf [Accessed 9 July 2018]. ↩

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